"The Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please."
Read quote
37 likes
Quote collection
Thomas Jefferson quotes (page 10 of 91)
1.8K quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"You know well that government always kept a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, invented and put into the papers whatever might serve the [government] ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper."
Read quote
36 likes
"It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order."
Read quote
36 likes
"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing."
Read quote
36 likes
"Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government."
Read quote
36 likes
"A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit."
Read quote
35 likes
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes."
Read quote
35 likes
"Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading."
Read quote
34 likes
"The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens."
Read quote
34 likes
"Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christians."
Read quote
34 likes
"My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!"
Read quote
34 likes
"Our tenet ever was . . . that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action."
Read quote
34 likes
"Eternal Vigilance is the price of democracy."
Read quote
34 likes
"The issuing power [of money] should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
Read quote
34 likes
"In matters of principle, stand like a rock."
Read quote
34 likes
"Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%."
Read quote
33 likes
"Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct."
Read quote
33 likes
"Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness."
Read quote
33 likes
"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine."
Read quote
33 likes
"The greatest calamity which could befall us would be submission to a government of unlimited powers."
Read quote
32 likes